


Heartless

by Sobriquett



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s01e07 A Heart is a Lonely Hunter, F/M, Fix-It, Hearts, Huntsman | Sheriff Graham Lives, Magic, Rare Pair Fest 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 06:10:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7789669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sobriquett/pseuds/Sobriquett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Emma's help, Graham finds his heart in time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heartless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Courtthesatchmo96](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Courtthesatchmo96/gifts).



Huntsman. Raised by wolves. Heartless.

Why did it all make sense? It shouldn’t – there was no rational basis for any of it – and yet it did. Graham knew it. What Henry had said had to be true, it was the first sense he’d heard all day.

Huntsman.

Heartless.

“It’s my heart, Emma,” he said. Desperation made his head spin. It was like running headlong out of a dark, somnolent forest and stumbling, stunned, into stark, unfamiliar daylight. “I need to find it.”

“Okay,” she said.

Perhaps she didn’t believe. That was okay. Graham would do this alone if he had to. Like her, he worked well alone. He couldn’t remember not feeling alone until these past few weeks.

They followed the strange-eyed wolf.

It led them through Storybrooke’s suburbs and into the woods, and from the woods into the cemetery. The day passed from afternoon to twilight as they followed the creature on foot, their cars forgotten in front of the mayor’s house. Each time the wolf seemed too far ahead or turned out of their sight, it stopped and waited for them to catch up. Silent but for the sounds of the forest and their footsteps, Emma followed Graham and Graham followed the wolf until they stopped in a wide cemetery and the wolf howled at the nascent moon.

They were in front of the Mills mausoleum.

The world was dim and shadowed around them, barely lit by dregs of sunlight through iron clouds. The light was dappled like sunlight through close-knitted branches, only grey rather than vivid green. This world seemed foreboding, colourless, empty and unsaturated. It was less than something else, something dimly grasped, the world of the red-eyed wolf. Graham felt his sense of reality rock once again, leaving him cold.

The building itself seemed ancient and wild, although less overrun than the graves around them. There were fallen leaves on the stairs and the doors were weather-beaten but there were no cobwebs. It was at least infrequently used.

“I have to look in there,” he said, retrieving his flashlight to steady his hands. “I have to get in there, please.”

Emma still didn’t believe him, Graham knew, but that didn’t matter. What sane person would believe him anyway? His only unflinching ally in this quest was a ten-year-old boy. No grown woman would believe him without proof, least of all his sceptical deputy, and the proof was inside.

And then she kicked the door down.

Graham gaped as Emma pushed inside, then followed her into the darkness. Where she faltered at the normalcy of the scene, at shattering the inherent peace of a tomb, Graham lurched past and went to work.

He searched. He shifted the pots, shoved at the window, brushed aside cobwebs, ran his fingers over every surface, tugged or pressed at every crack and crevice.

Emma watched at first. That was okay, Graham thought. Graham knew his heart was here. It was only a matter of time, of outwitting the— of outwitting whoever had his heart. The question of who – Regina but not Regina – was very much one for later. There was no time to lose. Still trembling, he reached the end of his first circuit of the room and went again. He must have missed something.

Emma first moved when she saw the name on the plaque: Henry Mills. Graham caught a glimpse from the corner of his eye as she ran her fingers over the name. And then she began to search in earnest as well, albeit with steadier hands, starting from the stone box in the middle of the room.

“Shit,” Emma said as stone creaked and scraped over stone. She had pushed at the top of the sarcophagus and the whole structure was shifting to reveal a staircase into the vault below.

“How did you do that?” Graham asked, rushing to assist. “I already tried that, I swear.” He grunted, shoving with all his might. His breath quickened and sweat beaded on his forehead, yet, for all his extra effort, the stone moved no faster, as if it moved only under Emma’s power.

“I don’t know!” she said, straining with effort, arms taut and knees bent as she heaved, toeing at the edge of the staircase.

Finally, the path down was clear.

They stood and caught their breath, exchanging glances. Graham wondered for a moment who was more afraid, but he knew. Apparently, one didn’t need a heart to feel fear drip down their spine. His hands were trembling as he wiped his brow. Emma’s were steady as she reached for the sarcophagus to steady her descent. Graham followed, thinking of wolves and sheep. He rubbed his hand over his chest, focussing on the throbbing of his pulse in his breast and in his ears.

At the bottom of the stairs, they found themselves in a candlelit room. Graham watched Emma note the candles, the way they were illuminated without evidence of another soul down here, and still as long as the hour they were first lit, no dripping wax.

Emma surveyed the vault, eyes checking every crack and corner, but Graham’s eyes were drawn immediately to the archway at the far end of the room. There was a great cabinet on one wall, stretching from one edge to the other, floor to ceiling, drawer after identical drawer. The grid of drawers looked curiously familiar but the brick archway and heavy curtains felt new.

When Emma took his hand (or did he clutch at hers?) he had another flash: a room high up in the tower of a palace, this same cabinet, this same quiet pounding in his head. The room thudded with the steady beat of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hearts. Was he just imagining that? Was it his cursed heart beating, thundering in his ears, or did that sound exist outside of his head as well?

He looked back at Emma as he led her forward, this woman who ordinarily wore her disdain for inexplicable (magical) nonsense like a badge of honour. She watched him with that expression of begrudging surprise, mouth agape, eyes wide. He’d seen it before when something had stunned her. No, it wasn’t just him who could hear that.

In this room were countless beating hearts.

Pushing back the curtain, Graham let go of Emma and began trying to open one drawer after another. He started in the far corner and worked back. None would budge. With a desperate glance back over his shoulder, Emma sighed and stepped forward. She gripped one chest-height drawer at random, the opposite of his systematic approach and tugged. It clicked and withdrew like—

It was the first one she touched.

He couldn’t breathe as she retrieved the box and opened it, her lips pressed together with distrust. How could his chest feel so tight, so full, when his heart was in this box?

“Magic,” he said at last. The cabinet had worked by magic. He reached out but couldn’t bring himself to touch.

“No way.” Even standing before him holding a box containing a glowing, beating heart, Emma doubted. “Magic _isn’t_ real.” It was no wonder she sounded unsure, with such evidence cradled in her hands. Graham thought she was talking to herself; a mantra for her benefit, not his.

Emma held the open casket out to him, glowing heart beating in the box. She was looking at his face, not his beating heart, but he failed to meet her eye. The heart was thumping in time with the blood in his ears. Graham steeled himself and picked it up.

He lifted it to eye-level, examined it under the dual power of his flashlight and a sconce of candles. He was holding his life in his hands, he knew. Every hope, every emotion he’d had or could have, in this life or the one that came before, resting in his fingers.

He balked.

“You do it. I can’t.” He held his heart out to Emma with one hand. “Please. I can’t.”

Emma took a step back. “What?”

“You have to do it.”

“I don’t—” Emma said. “What do—”

“You have to put it back.” He grabbed her wrist to still her and placed his heart in her hands. “Just… push it back.”

Emma looked at him, meeting his eye with that same strained bemusement from before. Her brows were drawn together, lips pressed tight, weighing up the evidence in her hands against twenty-eight hard years of experience and education. He felt it like a car atop his chest when her fingers adjusted their grip.

“Careful!” he said, clutching at his chest and hunching forward. He couldn’t suppress a small groan. “Not so tight!”

Emma loosened her hold and changed hands. She balanced the heart gently on one palm and gripped Graham’s shoulder with the other, warmed enough for Graham to feel heat seep through his shirt.

“What the hell is wrong with this town?” Emma asked under her breath, glaring at the heart glowing in her palm. “What the hell is wrong with me?” Frowning, she held his heart an inch from his shirt at chest level, ready to push. She asked, louder, “like this?”

Graham scrunched his eyes closed and nodded tightly, anticipating the pain he was certain was coming. He remembered agony and braced himself, studiously distracting himself by turning over thoughts about Emma’s strange magical instincts and the complete bizarreness of two supposedly rational law enforcement officers arguing over the mechanics of replacing a stolen magical heart.

And then there was something blood-hot pressing against his chest, wet and fiery, and then a rip of that familiar pain–

And then it was in.

It was as though a great wave crashed over him and knocked him backwards, warm emotion soaking him through and leaving him gasping. Graham staggered back against the stone wall. He laughed and grinned wildly up at Emma. Was that relief, jubilation, exhilaration? Whatever it was, it was _freedom_.

And he could _feel_.

He could _remember_.

Emma was so close, barely inches separating them. He could feel the heat of her skin on his, the heat of her hands through his shirt. His breathlessness wasn’t only caused by the galloping heart back in his chest.

Graham met her eye, her face wrought back into that familiar look of naked astonishment that he had merely been intrigued by when he'd seen it before tonight. Now, it took his breath away.

“What—”

Graham didn’t let her finish. He placed his hands on her face and kissed the question away. Everything he had felt before was drowned, swept away, shipwrecked by the tidal wave that crashed over him when their lips met and it felt as though his heart had been set aflame and he was burning from the inside out. The flames roared higher when she kissed him back.

“Thank you,” he said when he caught his breath again. For a long moment, all he could hear was the beating of hearts – hers, his own, those hundreds of others – and their breath.

And then they both heard the mausoleum door creaking open upstairs.

* * *

Back at the station, they patched each other up. Graham disinfected Emma’s wounds and Emma soothed Graham’s heartache. Neither could seem to stop smiling. The sight of Regina swinging for Emma and Emma more than holding her own and walking away nearly unscathed swam through Graham’s mind again. He bit back a laugh, giddy and fearless, dabbing at Emma’s brow. She hissed and winced away but nothing could wipe away Graham's grin. He wondered if Emma knew how true her aim had been when she'd invited Regina to look hard at herself in the mirror and wonder why everyone was running away. And Graham had done it - after more than three decades, he had run and he was _free_.

“All done,” Graham said, lowering the swab and his eyes. He blinked back tears – when had he last cried? Had he ever? But he wasn’t sad, rather the opposite – and stepped away.

Packing supplies back into the first aid kid, he felt himself taking stock. Was he ready for what came next? Were _they_? “We’ll have to be very careful," he said, happiness washed away for the moment by something cooler, although that giddiness still bubbled beneath. "She’ll want me dead now for sure, and she’ll hate you more than ever.”

Emma slipped off the desk and stood at his side. She matched his quiet seriousness. “You don't really believe Henry’s story about the curse, and Mayor Mills being the evil queen, do you?”

“I do. And the only thing the queen hates more than losing is being betrayed. She’s never taken loss well and this curse has been her life’s work; it was her sole ambition for many years.”

“You can’t really believe—”

Graham took Emma’s hand and faced her. That breathless feeling from the vault was still with him when she held his gaze and that bubbling happiness began to simmer over as he ran his fingers over hers, soft and warm, and suddenly he couldn't tell his multitude of feelings apart. Overwhelmed, he blinked back tears again when they threatened to blur his view of her eyes.

“I don’t believe,” he said. “I know. I was there. I did her bidding, warmed her bed – I obeyed her every whim.” He laced their fingers together as he left that to sink in. It wasn't news; they had fought over it just the evening before, but perhaps now she would believe what he'd said - last night, and now. “I heard you can always tell if someone’s telling the truth. Go on, what do you think?”

Emma’s hesitation and answer were just as Graham expected.

“Like I said to Henry,” she said. “Just because you believe something doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“You don’t believe us yet. Not completely. That’s okay. The dark curse, magic, true love, true love's kiss.” He put his hands on her face and leaned in again. Very little in his life was clear any longer, but this was. He could feel his heart pounding, and hers. “That’s okay. You will.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks, as always, to my magnificent beta, Kyrene3. I have no idea how she puts up with me.


End file.
